#btbday3

Jas opened her eyes to a room lit by flickering candlelight. The walls were stone, like the shrine, but her bed was far softer than she remembered. And bigger.

And it had a canopy.

This wasn't the shrine.

Everything came flooding back in an instant.

Jas shot bolt upright, eyes darting around as she reached for the gag in her mouth---the gag was gone. Her hands were untied, her wrists bandaged around where the ropes had cut into her skin. And she was wearing a thin nightgown.

They took her fucking clothes.

A heavy wooden door caught her eye, and Jas sprang from the bed, nearly getting tangled in the blankets in her haste. The stone floor was freezing under her bare feet, but she didn't care, grasping the metal ring handle and pulling with all her strength.

It wouldn't budge.

Swearing under her breath, Jas dug in and yanked on the handle again. This time it moved slightly, but only a few centimeters.

Either it was incredibly heavy, or it was barred from the other side.

Possibly both.

Jas didn't have time to consider the possibilities. She needed to get out of here. Turning away in a huff, she bee-lined for the window instead. It was small, with an uneven glass pane that barely made a sound when she tapped on it. Thick glass. Tempered glass? It certainly wouldn't break easily, but that was an option.

She would have to make a rope from the blankets. The room she had been placed in was some distance from the ground.

But first, something to break the window.

Jas turned around, giving the entire room a cursory sweep for the first time since she woke up.

She wasn't alone.

A guard stood near the far wall, not far from the door, with chin-length brown hair and the minimal armor worn by the guards who had escorted Jas to Azura's throne room. Her arms were folded, and she watched Jas with a slightly amused expression. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to notice me."

Jas hissed through her teeth, her face burning as she stalked back to the expansive bed and plopped back down. Aside from the bed, the only furniture in the room was a heavy wooden table, a chair that appeared to be carved from one piece of wood, and a delicate nightstand. Jas eyed the intricate wooden legs. They would snap off easily.

The guard followed her gaze and smirked. "I'd like to see you try and escape with one of those as a weapon."

Jas glared at her. "I just might."

Shaking her head, the guard moved to the door and rapped sharply on its surface in a complicated pattern. An answering beat responded, and the guard returned to her position.

The seconds stretched into minutes, and Jas watched her as closely as she did. How had she managed to miss a whole other person? There was nowhere to hide. Jas must've been more disoriented than she realized.

Finally, more knocks sounded from the door. The guard immediately answered them, though she never fully turned away from Jas.

Something scraped noisily from the other side of the door, and the guard pulled it open to reveal a younger woman dressed in a simple yet brightly-colored dress and apron carrying a tray of food. She set it down on the table, nodded to the guard, and departed quickly, all but fleeing the room. She never even looked at Jas.

The guard shut the door and stood in front of it. "Eat."

"No."

"The lady commands it."

Hunger curled in Jas's stomach at the smell of the food, but she ignored it. "What if it's poisoned?"

The guard sighed. "If the lady wanted you dead, she would have done so last night. If the lady wanted you asleep, she would've kept you asleep. Eat, or I will force you."

Jas bit back a cutting remark. The guard was correct. Azura would not be keeping her like this if she wanted Jas dead. And if Jas starved herself, she wouldn't have the strength needed to escape when the opportunity arose.

When, not if.

Whatever Azura's intentions, Jas wanted no part.

She huffed sharply and rose, taking the seat at the table. The tray had been laid out for a proper breakfast, with a bowl full of some sort of grain gruel, a piece of bread, scrambled eggs, and even a delicate china cup full of steaming tea.

Jas immediately picked it up to examine it more closely. A tree had been painted on the thin surface, one with red blossoms. Someone had lovingly crafted this piece of china---could she even call it china in a world where China didn't exist?---and they were just giving it to her? A prisoner caught in a lavish cage for who-knows-what?

Frustration boiled in her chest, and Jas fought the urge to hurl the cup across the room to watch it dash into a thousand tiny shards.

"Don't."

The guard's sharp voice reminded Jas that she wasn't alone.

Gritting her teeth, Jas took a careful sip of tea. It tasted like plain black tea. She wasn't sure what she expected. Tea was an interesting choice of beverage to serve a prisoner.

Definitely better than being starved.

"Eat quickly," the guard said suddenly. "The lady will see you when you are finished."

The sun was almost down by the time Kanako actually lifted her head from the snow. She couldn't remember where it had been at when she had finally sank into the snow, but there had been enough light to see by in her escape attempt. Now the only light she could see came from the windows of the cabin.

Kanako didn't try to get up immediately. At first, she let her face fall back into the snow. She couldn't remember ever being so cold before. There had been times where she thought she might freeze to death in unheated concrete cells, but now that felt dramatic. She had been able to feel her fingers and toes then. Her skin. Now, everything that touched the snow had gone numb.

Her back and the backs of her thighs burned from the cold, but Kanako actually preferred that stinging ache over the blank numbness of the rest of her body. It felt more real.

When her mind began to wander, Kanako would force herself to focus again. She would sit up. Her mind felt like it was skipping, like time was speeding up and slowing down unevenly. It was a terribly disorienting feeling. Sometimes she would blink, and once she had opened her eyes again she would be falling back towards the ground.

That was what pushed Kanako to shuffle across the snow to the tree that her collar was chained to. The tree was large. It was stable. She could lean on it. Maybe then she wouldn't fall over when her mind lagged.

The bark of the tree was cold, but it didn't numb her skin like the snow did. It felt like each place where she rested against the bark was a place where her skin was being slowly scraped off. She leaned harder into the tree. The pain kept her awake.

Kanako tipped her head up and stared into the branches above her. She couldn't tell what sort of tree she was under. She couldn't tell if it had naked branches or needles. The sky and the tree were all one black smudge. There was no moon out that night. Or maybe it was just behind the clouds. She couldn't see the stars, either.

That tree was the only thing that held Kanako up as her body shivered uncontrollably. Every time she had wondered if she would freeze to death in her sleep before she had been able to stop shivering. Now she only shook harder if she tried to still.

It was hard to tell if she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Time didn't feel like it was skipping anymore, but sometimes Kanako would open her eyes again and something around her would have changed. Once, it was more snow. The impression her body had left in the ground was half full. Another time, it was a brief beam of light from the moon. So, it was just cloudy that night.

Every part of her that had been submerged in the snow before remained numb. Her back kept hurting, though. It kept burning and aching, and when she could keep her eyes open she focused on that.

Kanako wasn't sure if it was the same overreacting nervousness that had told her she would freeze in her sleep a handful of times before, but it felt like she knew she wouldn't wake up if she actually went to sleep. If she stopped trying to keep her head up. She didn't want to die. No matter what she had to do, she didn't want to die.

So, whenever her chin would nod towards her chest, Kanako would press herself into the bark. When that stopped working as well, she would thump her head against the tree with all the might she could muster.

Again and again, the world seemed to skip around her. Once, she closed her eyes while it was dark. Then, she opened them to a red-orange hue in the clouds. There was enough light to see the outline of the trees by then.

Kanako didn't know if it mattered that the sun had come up. She had stopped shivering. She could only find the strength to tap her head back on the trunk of the tree.

The next time she opened her eyes, Miach was standing before her. She looked like a marshmallow, in the puffy white coat that wrapped around her.

Kanako watched Miach silently. She didn't want to die. She couldn't keep her head up. She couldn't keep her eyes open.

"Oh, you poor thing. I'm glad I didn't decide to have my coffee before I came to check on you. You might have been frozen by then," Miach was smiling again.

Kanako's head dipped, chin resting on her chest. She couldn't answer. She didn't even know if she could speak. It felt like her lips had frozen together.

"Don't worry, I won't make it hard for you this time. Kanako, be a good girl and look at me," Miach cooed.

Kanako couldn't remember why she had fought for so long. She couldn't remember why she had been so focused on disobeying Miach. It wasn't a hard command. It shouldn't have been, at least. Kanako tried to lift her head, but it felt impossible.

A warm hand slipped under her jaw. It was too warm. It was hot. It felt like it seared her skin. It lifted her chin up, though.

Kanako opened her eyes and looked up to Miach. It was all she could manage, but Miach patted her cheek with her other gloved hand. Had she done it?

"Good girl. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Miach teased. She pulled her hand from under Kanako's chin, and suddenly her head dipped back to her chest.

Kanako couldn't watch Miach, but she heard faint rustling. Then she saw Miach's gloved hands go under her chin to the collar. Those gloves looked so warm. The outside was waterproof, too.

The collar fell away as soon as the latch was opened. Then, Miach's arms looped under Kanako's.

Kanako couldn't do anything to help the woman lift her. She slumped into Miach, and her legs dragged the ground as the shorter woman carried her. It should have burned to have her legs dragged through the snow like that, but it didn't.

Kanako didn't remember closing her eyes, but the next time she opened them she was in the cabin. She was back in the bedroom she had been quarantined in, though the bedding was all different and the plastic that had been put over the furniture was gone.

Such thick, heavy blankets covered her that she could barely breathe. It didn't matter, though. They were warm. She could feel her body again, though it all ached and burned. She relished that sting.

Kanako wouldn't be left alone for long. She was content to close her eyes and drift off, but soon the blankets were pulled down to bare her shoulders. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to burrow further under the layer of warmth and protection.

A hand on her face stopped her. Then, Miach's voice drew her attention. "Kanako, look at me."

She knew that, once, she would have done anything to avoid that command. She could hardly fathom why anymore. She forced her heavy lids open and tilted her face towards Miach. The position of the woman's hand left Kanako leaning into it.

Miach met her with a smile. "Good girl. That's a good girl. Here, you earned a reward. How about some warm tea?"

Kanako still felt chilled, inside and out. The promise of something warm to drink was like the promise of endless riches. She gave a slow nod and looked to the cup in Miach's hands.

"It's cool enough you can drink it through a straw. I tested it to make sure. Here you go," Miach removed the hand from Kanako's cheek and petted her hair. Then, she moved a mug closer and put a straw between Kanako's open lips.

The first sip stung, but it didn't burn. Kanako sipped it and held it in her mouth. It wasn't too hot to swallow, and she could feel the warmth of it all the way down. The second sip didn't leave her lips and tongue aching like the first had.

"Good girl. Enjoy, you earned this," Miach cooed softly.